Chapter Text
As Chihiro drives their only apparent lead on the Hishaku around town, he tries to decides if he likes kids or just thinks they’re annoying. So far, the dial is ticking more and more towards annoying as Char loudly slurps on her sugary, whipped-cream topped milk tea and continues not telling him anything about why that exploding Daruma sorcerer was after her or where she’d seen Cloud Gouger.
Ugh, he knows Mr. Shiba and Mr. Azami had often teased his dad about acting like a little kid, but dad had known when to stop whining and start acting serious. Every time Chihiro asks Char a serious question, she just wrinkles up her mouth and refuses to speak for several minutes before starting up again with some new ridiculous request. It is kind of annoying.
Maybe that’s a bit of a mean thing to think. Chihiro’s been the sort of hungry that regular food won’t fix since he’d fought that Daruma sorcerer earlier; it’s making him a bit impatient.
“Phew, all done.” Char says, with a satisfied sigh placing her empty cup into the cup holder in the backseat before laying her hands over her stomach, the very picture of stuffed.
“Satisfied?”, Chihiro asks, telling himself sternly that even if she says no, this time he is driving the car back to Miss Hinao’s shop anyway. He is not going to falter a fourth time in the face of Char’s large, pitiable eyes and the memory of the broken-hearted face she’d made when that sorcerer had taunted her about her mother dying horribly to protect her. He is not.
Luckily for Chihiro’s willpower, Char just burps. He sighs, “Well, I guess that’s a yes then.”
She doesn’t protest and for a few seconds they drive in silence as the sun momentarily disappears behind thick clouds, making the afternoon look darker than it truly is.
“For a long time, me and mom were in a dark place where we weren’t allowed to leave.” Char suddenly speaks, voice quieter than it had been with her previous demands. Glancing in the rear view mirror, Chihiro sees that Char is watching his expression carefully, just has he’d been looking back to check hers.
He looks back at the road as she continues, “The only food there was awful mush. Mom said, no matter what, I had to get away from that place and live a happy life.”
She pauses, glancing back again Chihiro can see she’s smiling, content but with a sadness that looks too old for her tiny face, “And today, I was really happy. So thanks.”
He is probably going to give Char whatever she wants forever in hopes that she forgets how to make that face. “That so, -” Chihiro replies slowly, hopeful she’ll continue on the topic.
However, before he can find out, the expectant silence of the car is broken by the ringing of his cell-phone. Only three people have his number and none of them would call if it wasn't an emergency, so despite the bad timing Chihiro immediately picks up, answering with a quick, “Hello.”
“Hey, it’s me,” Mr. Shiba’s familiar voice says on the other end of line. “Where are you at right now?”
Chihiro glances at Char in the back seat, “Still driving. It’s a long story.” It’s not, but he doesn’t want to admit he’s apparently a push-over.
More importantly, Mr. Shiba seems to have had more luck than him in gathering information as he reports, “We have our target. Soujou Genichi, he’s a weapon’s dealer in the underworld and a pretty big fish one at that. Our new Cylinder-head buddy here works for him.”
That Daruma sorcerer? Chihiro thinks, as he pulls to stop at a crowded red light.
“He’s apparently the one after Char,”
A very crowded red light. Also, the give of the car felt off as he rolled to stop, almost like he’d suddenly gotten two flat tires in the front.
“and, he has Cloud Gouger.”
Looking around, the face of every person in the cars surrounding them is the exact same, and the ground in front of the car looks unnaturally soupy and unstable. Sorcery.
“The light’s green.” Char murmurs nervously. Chihiro nods and gestures for her to duck down.
“From how Cylinder head here talks and how he’s got an Enchanted Blade, this Soujou guy’s almost certainly connected to the Hishaku in some way.”
Chihiro floors the gas on the car, though he isn’t really surprised when the wheels just spin. In the backseat Char’s curled herself into a little ball, hiding in the large jacket Miss Hinao gave her.
“I’ll contact Hinao and ask her if any of her contacts might know anything. Let’s meet back up at the shop. Just gonna extract a little more info from my new friend here.”
In front of them, the ground goes from oddly soupy looking to an outright swirl of pavement and paint as if it has been turned into drain water. Emerging from the morass, is a scattered amalgamation of bodies, all of which appear to be copies of the same-faced man who is still watching them from the surrounding cars.
Definitely sorcery then. Probably after Char based on what Mr. Shiba just told him – though he’d made her stay in the car and duck her head down at the drive through, so nobody should have seen her. Whatever, how this guy found them is less important right now than dealing with the ambush he's set up.
“Gotcha. Got company but I’ll see you soon.” Chihiro answers, before hanging up the phone and reaching for Enten and his short sword.
He and the amalgamation eye each other warily for a moment, neither making any sudden movements. Chihiro wonders how this guy thinks he’s going to get away with sorcery this blatant in the middle of Tokyo where the Kamunabi are headquartered. Now he's also in the situation of needing to defeat this guy or get out of here before they show up.
Chihiro slowly reaches for the car door, and immediately the sorcerer makes his move. The many copies of the same-faced man start to rapidly melt, almost like candle-wax. The effect spreads quickly through the rest of their bodies, as they melt into the a disgusting wave that engulfs the car in darkness and the scent of wet earth. Mud? Is that this guy’s sorcery?
Reaching into the backseat, Chihiro grabs Char – still curled into a terrified ball – then draws Enten. With a silent apology to Mr. Shiba, he slashes through the human mud and the roof of the car leaping through the opening he’d made with Char in tow before it can close.
He lands his jump on a conveniently located section of the road’s signpost railing, wanting to stay far away from the ground. Looking down Chihiro can make out a single, undissolved version the same-faced man, the mud sorcerer?
The man speaks, eyes tracking Enten and Char both, “There it is. That’s an Enchanted Blade, right?”
Chihiro’s sure his face doesn’t twitch despite his surprise, but the man smirks smugly at him anyway as he continues, “Wondering how I knew? You two are pretty famous now. A certain man called Soujou posted a bounty online for a man with a scarred face and an Enchanted Blade and the kid he’s protecting. As much as the person who brings them in wants for the blade and the kid.”
That the arms dealer Mr. Shiba just told him about. The one with Cloud Gouger and a likely connection to the Hishaku. From Char's half-told story and this bounty on her, also apparently a despicable person.
“And Soujou is quite the name in the underworld, so when a guy like that says ‘as much as you want’, well-” the man trails off. Chihiro tenses, not needing him to finish that sentence. They need to escape.
He leaps off the railing he was perched on, making for a narrow alley. As he’d half-expected, new copies of the sorcerer surge forth from the muck that had previously engulfed the car to give chase.
Once the copies have been choke-pointed into a mass at the alley entrance, Chihiro turns and calls upon Kuro, throwing a slash backwards that splatters the majority of the group giving chase back into mud. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have much of a permanent effect, the bodies already rising and reforming even as he lowers his blade.
“You know I witnessed the Enchanted Blades during the war,” Chihiro turns back around to see the sorcerer - what must be his real body as this one has blood in it -, has doubled over and cut him off from the opposite side, “they ended hell.”
Chihiro shuffles, narrowing his eyes. If this guy survived the war then . . . he’s tough.
“I’m glad to see this blade doesn’t possess such monstrous power,” Chihiro’s hand tightens on Enten’s handle, trying to quell his anger at the comment and the slight shake of his exhausted hunger from so many consecutive fights. He really should have fed before taking Char out.
“Or, maybe the owner is just insufficient.”
It’s that one. Unfortunate, but true because there is nothing insufficient about this final blade that he’d helped his father to forge.
“Either way, don’t try anything.”
Chihiro ignores that obviously, darting forward in an attempt to strike the mud sorcerer’s true body. He can smell it, but the mud copies surging forward keep blocking his path and line of sight. One grabs at Char trying to yank her from his arms, and as Chihiro turns to snatch her back he catches sight of a new face, a large-eyed man reaching out to touch him and -
Chihiro’s sitting at the kitchen table with his dad about to eat dinner. Their goldfish swirl happily in their bowl content to watch as they have also just eaten. Everything is right with the world.
Everything is wrong, everything hurts. His dad is dead.
He’s sitting at a kitchen table with his dad,
The air smells like too much blood,
Weren’t they about to eat dinner?
he can’t see out of his left eye for the blood dripping into it,
He had just fed the goldfish, right?
the body under his hands is growing cold.
Chihiro is sitting at the kitchen table with his father’s corpse. Their goldfish lay on the table between them dead from the air and shattered glass of their broken bowl. Everything is wrong with the world.
Chihiro comes back to awareness with a grief so great and overwhelming that he cannot exist with it as grief. He has to feel it as rage, as hate, or he could not bear it all.
He opens his eyes with a furious gasp, sound still an undifferentiated buzz and muscles now shaking and twitching even worse than before – he really should have fed earlier -, to find himself on his knees, with grey concrete and two-pairs of nondescript mens’ shoes in front of his face. At first, all he can remember is that he hates them, the shoes, no, the people wearing them, and for a dizzying moment cannot remember why.
Then suddenly a loud sound that cuts through the buzzing of his stunned ears, accompanied by the overwhelming scent of blood.
Chihiro looks up to see the broad-faced sorcerer with large eyes that had ambushed him with that vision has crushed Char’s leg, shattering the thin bone into bloody shards. He’s smiling at his associate even with the blood on his hands, mouth moving with what looks like idle chatter. Held aloft in an uncaring hand, Char vomits from the pain, the bile of her stomach joining the tears and snot from her face in staining the jacket she’d been so excited to borrow from Miss Hinao earlier.
Chihiro remembers why he hates these men and his grip on reality tightens.
However, before he can react the ruins of Char’s leg start to bubble and reform. The limb begins to heal as if its time has been put in fast-forward, straightening even as the skin closes. More than that even, new bone grows to rapid perfection as the parts too damaged to use slough off to the ground.
‘Oh’, Chihiro thinks, ‘she’s like me.’ Followed closely by the wry thought that Char at least was smart enough to keep herself well-fed.
Both thoughts are quickly pushed to the back of his head as Chihiro notices Enten still laying on the ground in front of him. He takes half a moment to quell the residual shaking in his hands from the residual terrified adrenaline of the nightmare vision, from his worsening exhaustion, from his gnawing hunger, - that mud sorcerer was still holding Char, if he messes up this attack she’ll get hurt again – preparing to strike.
He’s not fast enough. The other sorcerer, the broad-faced one with the large eyes, notices him moving and bends to down to snatch Enten from him with hands still covered in Char’s blood.
Chihiro can’t help but furiously hiss out a useless command, “Don’t touch that with your filthy hands!”
The broad-faced sorcerer just laughs him off. So sure this is Chihiro’s defeat with Enten in his hands and a hostage in his ally’s.
But no, the large-eyed sorcerer and the mud user are both totally focused on Enten so really this is an opportunity. They’re not paying any attention to Char at the moment and apparently are still expecting Chihiro to be incapacitated.
Chihiro tracks the movements of their eyes, the bend of the large-eyed sorcerer’s body that blocks him from the mud sorcerer’s sight, and -
- there.
He lunges forward with his short sword, easily knocking Enten out of the large-eyed sorcerer’s loose grip.
The man gasps out a surprised, “No wait, how are you moving?”, the words barely out of his mouth before he’s cut down.
“What you showed me is why I’m moving.” Chihiro is unsure if the man lived long enough to hear, but it is an honest answer regardless.
He can neither fathom the amount of killing he’s done without the awful core of hatred-born-from-grief that has been driving him these past three years, nor can he fathom stopping while that feeling still lives within him. He doesn’t understand how a person could have a power that brought people such pain, use it like that, and somehow not understand.
Whatever, more importantly, he needs to act quickly while the other sorcerer is still on the back foot. Chihiro’s not foolish enough to underestimate these two again. Even if he can almost smell in the blood coating Enten’s blade and the thrumming beneath the living one’s skin that they’re nowhere near as strong as Mr. Shiba or Mr. Azami, the remaining sorcerer is still going to be faster and stronger than any yakuza thug he’s cut down.
So despite knowing it will leave him drain and useless, Chihiro calls upon Enten’s power as he strikes out. He doesn’t fully manifest Kuro, but darkness still pools around his blade, cutting cleanly through the mud clones even as Chihiro’s eyes never waver from the flesh and blood real target.
Luckily even with the little energy he has left, Enten is merciful enough to answer his call. The other sorcerer is dead before he’s finished vocalizing his desperate threat against Char.
She falls to the ground unharmed as he dies.
Chihiro leaves the corpses behind him to bend down to be even with Char, tear-stained and shaking. He has to brace himself slightly against the road as he does so, trying not to be overcome by a nauseous wave of exhaustion and hunger. That last strike had taken exactly as much out of him as he’d feared it would.
Despite all of that, Chihiro does his best to muster up a smile. He considers for a moment offering Char his wrist, worried she must be starving after healing so much so quickly, but quickly decides against it. They are still in a public alleyway after all, and even if the person after Char knows it is still better to be discrete.
Also, Chihiro’s not sure his blood would even work. He’s never met anyone like him before.
Instead he reaches into one of the inner pockets of his coat to pull out his own sandwich from their extended lunch trip, offering it to Char as he asks, “You tried to tell me about yourself before, right?” in the car, right after she’d thanked him before they were interrupted by the phone call and the attack, “thank you.”
She takes the sandwich, but unlike the last several times he’s given her food doesn’t immediately tear into it.
Chihiro continues, somewhat awkwardly, “. . . and even though it healed, I know that it hurt, so I’m sorry for not protecting you.
Char finally returns his smile, “It’s okay.” She sniffs, rubbing her face and trying to wipe away tears, “Your sandwich is all squished.”
“Sorry about that too.”
Fortunately on their way back, they run in to Mr. Azami because unfortunately on their way back they get cornered by another pair of sorcerers after the bounty on Enten and Char.
It is actually rather disgusting. Going after him because of the Enchanted Blade he’s holding is one thing, Chihiro understands that by picking up a sword he’s invited himself into that sort of world of violence, but Char is just an innocent little kid. It doesn’t matter what sort of money or power this Soujou guy is offering, being willing to hurt her is despicable.
Chihiro does his best to put the thought out of his mind the better to focus on not fainting as he balances carrying a curious Char on his shoulders with wrapping a bandage around Mr. Azami’s hand that got torn up during his quick fight.
. . . though honestly, it was more like a quick beat down. Chihiro didn’t need to be able to smell or to have tasted that power, it was obvious from watching just a few seconds of that one-sided fight, the predatory glee that had briefly flashed across Mr. Azami’s face, - he was very, very strong.
Something to work towards so that he could also pull off rescues where he was the only one that got hurt, Chihiro decides as he ties of the bandage.
“Thanks, Chihiro.” Mr. Azami says, smiling pleasantly now that the fight’s over and he no longer has to look at his own blood, “Now let’s get you and your new friend ho-, oh, woah there.”
Char had unfortunately tried to lean back as Chihiro was leaning away from Mr. Azami, and he staggers slightly trying to quickly counterbalance through his exhausted weakness so that they don’t topple over.
Mr. Azami peers at him more closely now, “You look half-dead, when was the last time Shiba fed you?” He shakes his head, “Nevermind, regardless we need to get you both off the streets while that bounty is still out. Want me to carry her?”
Char doesn’t say anything about the offer but she locks her legs and arms around Chihiro more firmly, clinging with all the strength her tiny child’s body has.
Chihiro shakes his head no.
Mr. Azami looks at them dubiously, “Well if you’re sure. Anyway follow me, I know a shortcut to Hinao’s place.”
He turns, heading at a brisk pace through the alleyway they’re in, leading them onto a brief pass through a busy street, then quickly back into another deserted alley. Definitely trying to keep them out of sight.
Chihiro follows silently, giving Mr. Azami a quick nod to let him know he can still handle carrying Char whenever he glances backwards to check on them.
Maybe in addition to being discreet, the route they took was also a shortcut, as pretty soon they’re walking back into Miss Hinao’s shop. As they enter, Mr. Azami calls out a friendly greeting to Miss Hinao and Mr. Shiba.
Miss Hinao returns the sentiment, and upon seeing her Char finally loosens her grip on Chihiro to jump down. She lands easily – good, no issues with her recently crushed leg -, and shows Miss Hinao her newly stained borrowed jacket with an anxious frown.
Confident that Miss Hinao has that handled, she takes excellent care of her clothing, Chihiro switches his focus back to where Mr. Shiba is grousing at Mr. Azami performatively from his seat at the counter.
“Huh, Azami? What do you want?”
Looking up from wiping Char’s face and the upper part of her jacket with a washcloth from the bar, Miss Hinao guesses, “Isn’t he here to take Char into the Kamunabi’s custody? I mean, what with the bounty that arms dealer creep put out on her.”
Char jolts, turning to look at Mr. Azami with wide betrayed eyes.
Mr. Azami crosses his arms, looking a bit apologetic, “Not exactly. You know the Kamunabi only intervenes in matters of national security. We have a strict policy of staying out of personal disputes and unfortunately, Char’s, wasn’t it?, situation qualifies as one.”
Mr. Shiba rolls his eyes, “Soooo strict when it benefits them, huh? Glad I quit.”
“I don’t like it either, but we barely have the manpower to keep a semblance of public order, much less to try to break up ever fight between any yakuza gang with the spare million to hire a sorcerer.” Mr. Azami replies, his polite tone now slightly more forced.
Letting the sound of their familiar argument wash over him, Chihiro looks down to see a large smile of Char’s face.
“Does that mean I get to stay here with Chihiro?” She asks Miss Hinao with excitement. Miss Hinao nods at her, “For now at least, yeah.”
Char starts flapping the sleeves of her long jacket at the news, causing Miss Hinao to look up at Chihiro with a beaming grin, “Ahh, look how happy that made her.”
Chihiro eyes Char’s concentrated flapping curiously, is that a happy expression for kids? He’ll have to remember that.
He turns back to Mr. Shiba and Mr. Azami’s conversation, ready to update them on the unfortunate demise of Mr. Shiba’s car and to hear what actually brought Mr. Azami here.
“Anyway, I actually got sent over because with all the ruckus going on the Kamunabi wanted to ask Shiba what he had heard about the Enchanted Blades, Cloud Gouger specifically, but you two are making it really hard to play dumb about Enten, brawling in the streets like that . . . “ Mr. Azami sighs.
Chihiro blinks. He feels a bit guilty for causing Mr. Azami trouble, but the Enchanted Blades belonged to his father so he has every right to have Enten, which they had forged together, and to recollect the other blades they had safeguarded for years. As long as he isn’t hurting innocent people, Chihiro doesn’t have anything to apologize for so it would be insincere to do so.
At his side Mr. Shiba takes it a step further by making an unpleasant face at the complaint.
Undeterred, Mr. Azami continues, “especially, with Chihiro looking half-starved. What if he’d-” Mr. Azami makes some sort of vague had gesture that Chihiro supposes is trying to subtly communicate something like, ‘passed out from hunger.’
This accusation, unlike the one before, introduces a shadow of guilt into Mr. Shiba’s expression, “I didn’t think he’d get into another fight so soon, and I was busy questioning that thug for hire.”
Uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation – it’s his own fault for being weak enough that calling upon Kuro in that fight yesterday and earlier today had left him so drained- , Chihiro cuts in, “I should have mentioned how low my energy was.” Then, eager to move on from whose fault it was, “You don’t have to be so subtle talking about it, Char’s like me.”
Char blinks up at him, eyes wide with astonishment, “Like me?”
Before Chihiro can reply Mr. Azami quickly speaks up, “Not exactly. She’s from the Kyounagi clan. They can regenerate near instantly from physical injuries, but unlike you they have to recover their spiritual energy the slow normal way.” Voice cautious he continues, “They also don’t have the same, uhh, drawback.” he finishes vaguely.
Chihiro frowns, a slight wistful jealousy instantly colliding with the more reasonable thought that being able to quickly recover his spiritual energy more than made up for the drawback of needing another person’s help to heal.
Totally undeterred, Char tugs on Chihiro’s jacket, clearly still excited, “You get better really fast and it’s a secret too, just like me?”
Chihiro nods, and Char actually squeals, her voice jumping up a register with her excitement, “Chihiro’s like me! How does it work for you? Mommy said that for us it’s cause we wish with all our might for pain to go sway – Mommy was like Char too - , and then woosh! All better! How does it work for Chihiro? Did you get it from your mom or your dad or just you?”
“Don’t -” Mr Shiba starts, but Chihiro (with a silent internal apology) ignores him, helpless in the face of Char’s hungry enthusiasm.
“I got it from my mother as well.” He answers, “For me, someone can lend me strength by letting me drink their blood.”